Everyone began chanting together: “Go! Go! Go!”
Chris raised the war club above his head, gave the traditional Warrior yell, and sped down the field followed by the torchbearers.
Still holding the club above his head, Chris joined the circle of his teammates. The girls threw the torches onto the pile of wood and the crowd roared as the flames grew steadily higher.
All of a sudden, everybody seemed to be moving, gathering around the huge bonfire. Holding Zoe carefully by the hand, Lucy made her way down from the grandstand. They joined the throng and stood watching the fire, roaring in approval as a dummy dressed in a Gilead Giants uniform was thrown into the flames.
“Mom, we’ll win the game, right?” asked Zoe.
“Maybe,” said Lucy, who subscribed to the glass-half-full theory.
“Not a chance,” said Sara. “Gilead’s already in the finals for the state super bowl.”
“Winning’s not the important thing,” said Lucy mechanically. She was wondering what to have for supper. Something everybody would eat. “It’s how you eat the rice.”
“You mean play the game.”
“That’s what I said.”
Zoe and Sara looked at each other and laughed.
CHAPTER 9
Lucy was just putting the finishing touches on a brown rice and carrot casserole when the phone rang. She picked up the receiver and was surprised to hear Fred Rumford’s voice.
“What can I do for you?” she asked as she slid the dish into the oven.
“I have to get something in tomorrow’s paper,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Fred, but it’s too late. The deadline was noon.”
“Damn,” he said.
Something in his tone made Lucy suspect that, whatever it was, it was something a lot more important than an announcement for a bake sale or a flintknapping workshop.
“Is something the matter?” she asked.
“You bet something’s the matter! The Metinnicut war club is missing.”
Lucy’s hand tightened on the receiver. This could be a big story. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. When I handed it over to Chris White I made him promise to bring it right back to me as soon as the pep rally was over. We agreed on a meeting place—by the ticket booth—and I was there right on time. In fact, I was early and I stayed for an hour, but there was no Chris. I went back to the museum, thinking he might have misunderstood and gone there instead, but there was no sign of him. I called his house and his mother told me he wasn’t home yet and she didn’t expect him until late because it was the night before the big game.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Of course I did. And they picked up Chris, drunk as a skunk.”
“On the night before a big game?”
“Not just him. Most of the team!”
“No wonder we never win.”
“More to the point, there was no sign of the war club. Chris said he was approached after the pep rally by someone who offered to return the club for him and he handed it over.”
“I can’t believe he did that,” said Lucy. “Did he know the person?”
“Apparently not. But he did say he looked like an Indian, with long black hair and a bear claw necklace.”
Lucy sighed. “That sounds like Curt Nolan.”
“Exactly,” said Rumford.
“Are the police looking for him?”
“They are, but so far they haven’t had any luck. He wasn’t home and nobody seems to know where he is. For all we know, he could have left the country.”
“I wouldn’t jump to conclusions,” said Lucy, who had learned as a reporter that there were always at least two sides to any story. “We don’t really know much for sure. It’s not even certain that it was Nolan who took the club.”
“Oh, I’m certain,” said Rumford.
Lucy didn’t like his tone. He sounded as if he were ready to act as judge, jury, and executioner.
“What now?” she asked.
“Well, I’d hoped to get the news out. Ask for anyone who has any information about the club or Nolan to contact the police.” He paused. “But you say it’s too late.”
As much as she hated it, Lucy knew she had to tell him, even though it meant the Pennysaver would lose a scoop.
“You could call the Portland paper,” she said. “And the TV station. Why not try the Boston Globe?”
“You think they’d be interested?” Rumford sounded doubtful.
“I’m certain they will,” said a resigned Lucy.
As she hung up, she thought of Ted. He’d be furious that he’d missed such a big story, but that was the problem with publishing only once a week. It meant you lost out on news that happened the other six days of the week.
There was really no point calling him with the bad news, she thought, as she started cleaning up the mess she’d made preparing the casserole. He’d find out soon enough.
CHAPTER 10
On Thanksgiving day, Lucy woke up a half hour before the alarm was set to go off. It was a luxury she was unaccustomed to: time to herself. Careful not to disturb Bill, who was sound asleep beside her, she rolled on her back and stretched. Then she tried to work up some enthusiasm for the long day that stretched ahead of her.
Truth be told, Thanksgiving had never been her favorite holiday, consisting as it did of football and food. Food that she had to cook and dishes—lots of dishes—that she had to wash. This year she’d been able to summon up more excitement than usual, but that was because Toby was coming home.
She sighed. Somehow Toby’s homecoming hadn’t gone at all as she’d expected. He and his friends seemed interested in using the house only as a place to sleep and leave their stuff. Yesterday, much to her irritation, after she’d gone to the trouble of making that vegan brown rice and carrot casserole for supper, they’d gone on to Portland after stopping only briefly at the pep rally and hadn’t returned until around eleven. She hadn’t seen much of Toby, and the girls hadn’t seen him at all. They’d either been asleep or at school when he made his
